Apple explains: iTunes Match beta “streaming” isn’t streaming at all

The iTunes Match beta released to developers on Monday seemed to reveal both …

UPDATE: An Apple spokesperson told All Things Digital on Tuesday that what appears to be iCloud streaming—described in the original article below—is in fact a " simultaneous listen and download." Sadly, it appears that iTunes Match is still limited to downloads only.

UPDATE 2: Despite Apple's semantically pedantic explanation that iTunes Match does not "stream" songs but instead "plays as it downloads," further investigation suggests that is not actually the case. Songs that are played by clicking on the title are effectively cached in full on iOS devices, then deleted automatically when navigating away from the song. These songs are not added to the library as they are when clicking the iCloud "download" icon.

Arguing semantics in this way seems likely to confuse the average customer if they believe the file has been downloaded when it has not. This functionality may change before the service is officially launched, however, so we will continue to investigate the matter.

Original text: Apple gave third-party developers early beta access to its upcoming iTunes Match service on Monday night. The service so far works as Apple has described—it will match iTunes Store tracks instantly and upload any others. In addition to allowing downloads of your entire iTunes library, however, it also includes iCloud-based streaming to iTunes or to an iOS device—a feature that was not previously revealed about the service.

Registered developers can download iTunes 10.5b6.1, which allows the iTunes Match service to be turned on by paying the $24.99 yearly fee. Apple told developers that they will get an additional three months of service for free in order to cover the beta period, though those who manage to access the 6.1 beta without a developer account are told that they'll still have to wait to give iTunes Match a shot.

Once activated, iTunes scans a user's library for music. Any songs that match up with tracks in the iTunes Store get linked to a 256kbps iTunes Plus track that is stored on Apple's servers. Songs that don't match are uploaded to a special part of the user's iCloud storage, which doesn't technically count against your storage quota. We say "technically" because Apple still limits iTunes Match to 25,000 tracks total—apparently larger libraries won't sync at all with iTunes Match.

Previously, Apple indicated that iTunes Match would only allow users to download tracks to authorized computers or authorized iOS devices. The free "previous purchases" feature works this way as well—by download only. However, Insanely Great Mac discovered Monday night that iTunes Match tracks—at least those that are matched to tracks in the iTunes Store—can stream directly to iTunes or an iOS device without downloading first. (The ability to stream non-matched, uploaded tracks has not yet been verified.)

Insanely Great Mac: iTunes Match on iOS w/ live streaming and download

As the video above demonstrates, tapping a track name on an iOS device will stream the song. On iTunes, clicking play will have the same effect. To download the song to iTunes or your iOS device, simply click the iCloud "down arrow" icon.

Streaming capabilities have been expected to be added to Apple's iTunes ecosystem ever since the company purchased music streaming service Lala in late 2009. The company developed a protocol called HTTP Live Streaming specifically to make streaming audio and video content to computers and mobile devices a simpler process. While Apple did switch to streaming TV and movies to its Apple TV last fall, the company made no mention of streaming songs from iCloud when the service was announced this past June.

The great thing about being able to stream tracks is that you won't have to wait for songs to download fully to listen to them, nor will they be permanently added to your mobile device's limited storage space. As long as you have a network connection, you can get a little Ooooooohhh... on the TLC Tip flashback whenever and wherever you want. If you plan to be outside the range of a reliable network, however, you can always download the track for offline listening.

Apple said that iCloud and iTunes Match would launch this fall along with iOS 5. We believe these services will launch in September, likely in conjunction with typical next-gen iPod announcements.